Early Times Report
jammu, Dec 23: NC president and former J&K CM Farooq Abdullah's December 21 "regional autonomy" statement has triggered a debate. Friends and well-wishers of Jammu province have rejected Farooq Abdullah's statement as a desperate attempt to hoodwink the people of Jammu province and win a few seats from the province.
The BJP and the Congress too had reacted to the Faroqq Abdullah's statement. The Congress leader and former minister Sham Lal Sharma has welcomed the statement and urged Farooq Abdullah to put in public domain his regional autonomy concept so that it could be discussed by the people. Earlier, as a minister in the Omar Abdullah-led coalition government, Sharma had demanded trifurcation of the state, saying let Kashmir had autonomy but Jammu and Ladakh must be separated from Kashmir. His demand had triggered a fierce debate with many Congress leaders demanding his ouster from the party and the NC taking on him, saying he was playing what it called divisive politics.
The BJP, on the other hand, has rightly rejected the NC's whole approach towards Jammu and accused Farooq Abdullah and its Jammu-based "stooges" of trying to divide Jammu on religious and ethnic lines.
The point is that while the Congress leader didn't express concern over the NC's plan to create three regions out of Jammu - plains of Jammu and division of Pir Panjal Mountain into the so-called Chenab Valley comprising Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts and Pir Panjal region consisting of Poonch and Rajouri districts --, the BJP did take an exception to this move and condemned it publicly through its chief spokesperson.
As for the two Kashmir-based parties the NC and the PDP, both have been trying to divide Jammu province to accomplish their age-old objective: Creation of Greater Kashmir. Only the other day, the PDP had taken senior Congress leader Karan Singh on the issue. And as for the NC, less said the better.
It would defend the division of Jammu province by invoking medieval Mughal ruler Akbar. It would adopt the approach it adopted in 1999 while defending its nasty Regional Autonomy Committee (RAC) report. That year, NC leader and Chief Whip of the party in the Assembly, Mubarak Gul, who was also a member of the RAC, had ridiculed those who had described the RAC recommendations "as a step towards dividing Jammu on religious lines". Gu had said: "J&K is a plural state in terms of cultures, religions, regions and languages. It represents sub-continental diversity".
"Dividing the state into several regions or provinces is nothing new. Akbar had divided Kashmir into four regions - Eastern Kashmir Maraz, Western Kashmir Kamraz, Central Kashmir and External Kashmir. The External Kashmir comprised outer mountain regions, including Banihal, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Poonch. This region also included Gilgit, Askardo and Ladakh. The Dogra rulers had initially divided the state into six and later into four regions called Wazarats. These divisions were meant for purely administrative purposes".
What Gul said should call the NC's bluff and make the people of Jammu and Ladakh sit up and work out a strategy to defeat the what the friends of Jammu and Ladakh term as the "NC's evil game plan". |
